Open water swimmer Luca Karl ahead of the European Championships: “The worst thing is to kick someone when they’re down.”

As a child, Luca Karl was afraid of the water. An unusual backstory for a swimmer who is now among the world’s best – especially in the discipline where the water is rarely calm and the competition isn’t always gentle: open water swimming.

At his first swimming lesson in Salzburg, Karl had “a few teething problems,” as he says with a chuckle. These days, it’s not so much the water itself that poses a challenge, but rather his competitors in it. Because in open water, there are no lane lines that mark out lanes and boundaries in a pool. Everyone is looking for the same optimal line, arms and legs collide, and some athletes deliberately try to shove.

Karl knows the “candidates” who like to pull, push, or block his path. However, retaliation would be the worst possible response. “The worst thing you can do is swim after them and kick them while they’re down,” says Karl. Because those who retaliate lose time and focus. “You have to keep your emotions under control.”

Karl the Fifth

At the 2025 World Championships in Singapore, he achieved this better than almost anyone else. In his very first World Championship start, the 10-kilometer race, the 24-year-old finished fifth. Since then, Karl knows: “I belong here, I’m not just a spectator.” For a long time, he only knew sports greats like Florian Wellbrock and Gregorio Paltrinieri from television. Now, Karl stands at the starting line next to his former idols and exchanges a few words with them. His idols have become his competitors. “That’s what everyone who starts swimming dreams of.”

The journey began without a grand, overarching plan. Because Karl was already swimming long distances in the pool, he eventually tried his hand at open water swimming. “If it’s not for me, it’s not for me,” he thought. But it was.

Tour de Seine

Karl likes that no two races are the same in open water. The start on the beach, the changing course, the current, and the weather: “I wouldn’t call it a vacation feeling,” he says, “but there’s something liberating about it.”

What Karl likes about it is also what makes the races so difficult to plan. He has to pace himself over ten kilometers. The tactical calculation is reminiscent of the Tour de France: Karl looks for a suitable group and uses the slipstream of the swimmers in front, just like professional cyclists use their slipstream. There is a basic strategy, but the unpredictability of the race demands constant adaptation. Karl has to react “intuitively and spontaneously.”

At the European Championships in Paris, the ten-kilometer race will be held on Tuesday in the Seine River around the Île aux Cygnes. And that’s why Luca Karl’s old caution about the water has returned a little. This time, of course, it’s not due to a lack of swimming ability, but rather the river’s water quality.

After several athletes fell ill at the Olympics, the open water swimmers recently wrote a letter to the European Swimming Federation. Karl was reassured by the response: the current measurements were “excellent” compared to 2024, and a contingency plan was in place.

This allowed him to focus again on Tuesday on the unpredictability that had initially attracted him to open water swimming – the sporting aspect.